It’s hard to wrap our heads around numbers like this. And how can your small eStore ever be found with all the content pouring into the internet on a daily basis?

One important step in your marketing strategy has to be better SEO, as over 4.9 billion payments were processed through PayPal in 2015 and you want a piece of that action. SEO, or search engine optimization, is a somewhat abstract practice that’s always changing. But it’s something you need to connect your eStore with your customers.

1. Your eStore Must Have a Blog

Regardless of whether you're selling from a larger platform marketplace or your own website, the first SEO rule is you must have a blog. A blog allows you to create promotable content that will help increase your eStores rankings. Melissa, from the eCommerce platform Selz, says traffic “doesn’t happen by magic. Now, you’ve got to engage your ideal buyer, so you can start making sales. One of the best ways to attract the right people to your business is through content.”

Check with your eCommerce platform to see their blogging options, or add one to your existing website (it’s easy if you’re already using WordPress or Wix).

2. Use Clean Coding

Don’t worry – this isn’t about becoming an HTML expert!

The way Google indexes pages is part of their proprietary system, but we all have to play by their rules since Google’s the biggest player on the planet. In How to Get Google to Instantly Index Your New Website, author Neil Patel explains how you should use a plain text editor, not a word processing system like MS Word to create content. MS Word can insert unknown coding into your content without your knowledge which can impact the way Google finds your content.

Don’t worry about the code, just understand you need to keep your coding clean. This means not using Word to write. Instead, try using something like NotePad or WordPress with an SEO plugin.

3. Re-Work Forgotten Content

According to Matthew Barby, Global Head of Growth & SEO at HubSpot, “it’s no secret that a large percentage of most sites’ organic traffic and leads comes from a small percentage of the total content on the site.” This means you can tweak underperforming content anytime you want to try and improve the rankings.

Check your stats and see what good content isn’t working to its potential. You can update any older information, swap out references and links to something more relevant, and change the published date to the current date. With a little work, your forgotten content will now become relevant, popular and a star SEO page.

4. Link the Right Way

There’s a lot of talk about linking and most of it’s a technical nightmare to understand. Yet, SEO expert Ashley Faulks, from Mad Lemmings, says:

“Linking out to relevant content while you are creating an amazing piece of content (aka blog post) is entirely natural and very useful to your readers. So, you should be doing it. And, it is even a subtle SEO ranking factor (ie. search engines support it, even if they won’t admit it).”

The key phrase to remember is relevant content. For example, I always link to statistics or quotes I use. I never link to questionable content for SEO purposes. Just keep it natural and logical.

5. You Make Too Much Content

Derek Halpern, the nutty but brilliant host of Social Triggers, says the #1 time waster is content creation. This makes perfect sense. If you spend 80-90% of your time writing content, that leaves little time for any actual promotion. Halpern says “You don’t have to create content, day in, and day out. You just have to work on getting the content you already have… in the hands of more people.”

Spend the majority of your time promoting your best content. This includes working on SEO for each new piece of content. Change keywords, try different titles, or using different phrasing – just don’t get in the habit of cranking out content for content's sake.

If you’re not happy with your eStore’s sales, it’s time to create a new marketing strategy with SEO as a cornerstone. SEO isn’t the only answer, but it’s a huge piece of the puzzle. You know that customers are buying products just like yours on a daily basis. Now you only have to find a way to drive them towards your amazing store not your competitors.

Don’t shy away from SEO because it seems too technical. If you can manage an eStore, you can handle SEO.

Liesha's a freelancer by day and Kyokushin Black Belt by night. Liesha's the author of Killing Rapunzel: Learning How to Save Yourself Through Determination, Grit, and Self-Employment (her mother hates the title - but it's a metaphor mom!). She talks business at Microbusiness Essentials and everything else on Twitter.

PROJECT EVE MEDIA

Project Eve Media is social media management company with a concentration on lead generation and sales. We position our clients for success through social media management services, social media advertising services, website design, and content marketing.